Sonja Henie turned her successful figure skating career into a lucrative film career during the Golden Age of Hollywood. The Norwegian figure skater turned her Olympic gold medals into shining silver screen performances in the 1930s and 1940s. During her illustrious movie career, Sonja starred in a number of films, and incorporated her beautiful ice-skating…
“On the Waterfront”: Leonard Bernstein’s Only Movie Score
The 1954 film, On the Waterfront, starring Marlon Brando as a longshoreman who becomes tangled in the violence and corruption at the New York City docks, was directed by Elia Kazan. The film, now a classic of the Golden Age of Hollywood, was notable for many reasons, including the fact that On the Waterfront was…
The Shortest Leading Men of the Golden Age of Hollywood
We might think of leading men of the Golden Age of Hollywood as being tall, dark, and handsome, but thanks to the magic of Hollywood, audiences couldn’t see that some of their favorite heartthrobs were really quite short. Directors had to get creative to make them tower masculinely over their leading ladies. Here are some…
Shirley Temple and Hollywood’s First Interracial Dance Scene
Hollywood was much different in the 1930s. It is a sad fact that African American performers did not have the same opportunities as white actors, nor were they cast in spotlight roles. Slowly, groundbreaking men and women broke through the barriers and took brave steps toward racial equality. One such actor was a 57-year-old former…
The 1941 Film That Tells Hollywood to Get Serious
Throughout the 1930s, movie studios seemed focused on churning out entertaining, yet shallow ‘escapist’ movies, but there were people in the film industry who longed to see Hollywood use its creative talents to produce films with more substance to them. They advocated for more socially conscious and meaningful filmmaking. For a time, their comments fell…